In the church books, my German ancestor JohannPeter (1774-1837) is constantly mentioned as Joes Petrus. I looked Joes up in a Dutch first name book, and there it said that Joes is a variant of Joseph. But I'm certain that my ancestor is called JohannPeter, not JozefPeter.

Could Joes perhaps be the German latinate form of Johann? In church books they always write down the Latin variant of the first and middle names. For example, his son is called Carolus Maximilianus in the church books, but in the civil registry, he is mentioned as KarlMaximilian.

Can someone please help me out with this? Thank you very much in advance!